Le Mans
The Circuit de la Sarthe first hosted the 24 Hours of Le Mans on 26–27 May 1923, running on public roads through the countryside south of Le Mans in the Sarthe department of western France. A century of modifications later, the full Circuit des 24 Heures du Mans measures 13.626 km (8.467 mi) over thirty- eight turns, clockwise, still stitched together from purpose-built racetrack and closed-off public road. The Mulsanne Straight is the everyday D338. It is one of the longest and fastest circuits in world motorsport, and the bulk of a lap is spent flat in top gear.
The Mulsanne Straight
The circuit’s signature is its longest feature: the roughly 6 km Mulsanne Straight, known in French as the Ligne Droite des Hunaudières. Until 1990 cars ran it unbroken (a WM P88-Peugeot was timed at 407 km/h here in 1988) before two chicanes were installed to cap top speed and satisfy an FIA limit on straight length. It remains where the race is won or lost on raw velocity and nerve, braking from over 320 km/h into the right-hand Mulsanne Corner at its end.
The Porsche Curves
If the Mulsanne is about speed in a straight line, the Porsche Curves are about speed through a corner. Added in 1972 to bypass the old Maison Blanche kink, this fast right-left-right sequence is threaded with minimal run-off and a high minimum speed, and drivers prize a flat-out run through it above almost anything else on the lap. The two Ford Chicanes that follow drop the cars to a crawl one last time before the start/finish line.
The opening sector
From the pit straight the lap climbs through the right-hand Dunlop Curve beneath the famous Dunlop Bridge, snaps through the Dunlop Chicane, then drops into the sweeping Forest Esses (Esses de la Forêt) and out through Tertre Rouge, the right-hander whose exit fires the cars down the Mulsanne. The slow Arnage right-hander and the fast Indianapolis sweep break up the long run back from Mulsanne Corner.